I Adored a Lord Read Free

house.
    When they were in residence at Shelton Grange, Sir Beverley and Mr. Pettigrew liked to coddle her, like the first time she assisted Sir Beverley’s tenant farmers during the lambing and afterward walked about in a daze with purple circles beneath her eyes. Mr. Pettigrew mixed up a batch of his special recipe for recovering from excessive debauchery, and Sir Beverley read to her aloud from A Treatise on Veterinary Medicine . Privately Ravenna took this solicitude to heart, while to their faces she teased them, telling them they were treating her as though she were an infant and they her nurses. They seemed to like that. She called them “the nannies” and they called her their “young miss.”
    For six years Ravenna was deeply happy.
    Then Arabella married a duke and Sir Beverley told Ravenna that she must begin to make plans to depart Shelton Grange, for he could not employ a duchess’s sister, no matter how fond they all were of her. One morning not long after that, Beast did not wake up, and Ravenna understood that Paradise was only a dream invented by pious men to fool everyone.

 
    Chapter 2

    The Kiss
    10 February 1818
    Combe Park
    Dear Sir Beverley,
    I have received a letter from Mr. Pettigrew that gives me great sorrow. He writes that Beast is gone and my sister stricken. While I have begged her to come to Combe, she does not respond. I know you will agree that a change would be best. And so I have a proposition for you. I have learned through my husband’s dear friend, Reiner of Sensaire, that Prince Sebastiao of Portugal will gather a party in France next month. Will you escort Ravenna to this party? There will be a castle and a great many horses and other creatures, I have no doubt, which might give her some measure of consolation. I have already secured invitations to the party for you, her, and Mr. Pettigrew. I beg you to accept.
    With my fondest wishes &c.,
    Arabella Lycombe
    From behind the mullioned window of a turret above the forecourt of Chateau Chevriot, Ravenna peered down onto the drive, pebbled and crisply gray as a drive in the midst of winter would inevitably be. A man garbed in a coat of military style with tasseled gold epaulets and plentiful medals of honor stood directly beneath her. A young man, Prince Sebastiao possessed a long nose, reddened eyes, and an aspect of begrudging dissipation. He had been educated in England during the war and spoke English as well as any spoiled young wealthy Englishman, and apparently behaved as poorly as any of them as well. That a member of the Portuguese royal family—­albeit a lesser branch—­considered a medieval fortress situated in a mountain crevice an appropriate venue for a party in a season far too early to comfortably be called spring caused Ravenna no little wonder.
    â€œDespicably wealthy ­people do anything they like at any season they like, my dear,” Petti said. “Delightful to be friends with them, I say.”
    Prince Sebastiao’s other delighted friends had been arriving all day in carriages marked with mud and dust from long travel yet still fantastically elegant. The parade of mobile wealth had Ravenna’s nose pressed to the window in the sort of horrified fascination one has for one’s own execution.
    â€œWho is that?” She poked a finger against the window. Sir Beverley stood beside her. No one below had yet noticed them spying, and she thought that her former employers must know everyone in Europe.
    â€œThe Earl of Whitebarrow,” he said. “Ancient title, and the family is very wealthy.”
    â€œHm.” Beyond the guests and past the forecourt, the prospect of the mountain ascended sublimely. As she had walked along the river that morning, winter birds fluttered about bushes, a pair of hawks circled above, and two dozen deer ambled up into the spruce and pines that climbed to the mountain’s peak. This collection of fashionable ­people